rectangular pools, was a striking orange grove. The trees had been planted close together, the branches carefully manicured and coaxed to intertwine as if to form a ceiling. A little enclosure, he realized, the foliage so thick with plump fruit and snowy white flowers one couldn’t see through it.
Charmed, he kept walking, drawn to the place. Whoever had planted it really had done an extraordinary job. It even had an archway pruned from the leaves to create …
Ali halted so fast, he almost fell backward. Nahri was very much not in the infirmary. She was here, surrounded by books, as though she’d stepped straight out of his fondest memories.
And more—she looked like she belonged here, the royal Banu Nahida in the palace of her ancestors. It had nothing to do with jewels or rich brocade; on the contrary, she was dressed simply in a white tunic that fell to her calves and loose purple trousers. A raw silk chador in shimmering umber was pinned just above her ears with diamond clips, thrown back over her shoulders to reveal the four black braids that fell to her waist.
Are you surprised? What had Ali expected of Nahri? That she’d be a faded version of the sharp woman he’d known, grieving for her lost Afshin, pale from being trapped for long hours in the infirmary? That had not been the Banu Nahida he’d once called a friend.
Ali shut his mouth, suddenly aware that it had fallen open, that he was staring like an addled fool, and that he was very much somewhere he shouldn’t be. A glance revealed neither guards nor servants nearby. Nahri was alone, perched in a wide swing, an enormous volume open in her lap, notes scattered haphazardly on an embroidered rug below her, along with a tray holding an untouched cup of tea. As Ali watched, she frowned at the text as if it had personally offended her.
And suddenly all he wanted to do was step forward and drop down by her side. To ask her what she was reading and resume their bizarrely companionable friendship of hunting through the catacombs of the Royal Library and arguing about Arabic grammar. Nahri had been a light for him during a very dark time, and Ali hadn’t realized until he was standing here quite how much he’d missed her.
Then stop stalking her like a ghoul. Nerves fluttering in his stomach, Ali forced himself to approach. “Sabah el-noor,” he greeted softly in the Egyptian dialect she’d been teaching him.
Nahri jumped. The book fell from her lap as her startled black eyes swept his face.
They locked on the zulfiqar at his waist, and the earth buckled beneath his feet.
Ali cried out, stumbling as a root burst from the grass to snake around his ankle. It jerked forward, and Ali fell hard, the back of his head hitting the ground.
Black spots blossomed across his vision. When they cleared, he saw the Banu Nahida standing over him. She did not look pleased. “Well …,” Ali started weakly. “Your powers have come a remarkably long way.”
The root tightened painfully around his ankle. “What the hell are you doing in my garden?” Nahri demanded.
“I …” Ali tried to sit up, but the root held firm. It twisted up his ankle, disappearing under his robe to snake around his calf. The feeling was far too similar to the weeds that had grabbed him under the lake, and he found himself fighting panic. “Forgive me,” he blurted out in Arabic. “I only—”
“Stop.” The flat word in Djinnistani was like a slap across the face. “Don’t you dare speak Arabic to me. I won’t hear my language on your lying tongue.”
Ali stared at her in shock. “I … I’m sorry,” he repeated in Djinnistani, the words coming more slowly to him. The root was at his knee now, hairy tendrils sprouting and spreading. His skin crawled, a painful prickle shooting down the scars the marid had left on him.
He squeezed his eyes shut, and water beaded on his brow. It’s just a root. It’s just a root. “Please, can you get that thing off me?” It was taking every bit of strength he had not to reach for his zulfiqar and hack it off. Nahri would probably let the earth swallow him whole if he drew his blade.
“You didn’t answer my question. What are you doing here?”
Ali opened his eyes. There was no mercy in Nahri’s expression. Instead, she was slowly spinning one finger, a mirror of the movement the